Ripping the guts out of Abbott’s climate change policy

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Tony Abbott released the Coalition’s new climate change policy yesterday, a $3.2 billion plan centering around an “Emissions Reduction Fund” that will allow businesses to sell emissions cuts they make to the government.

Kevin Rudd has already labelled the plan a “climate con job“, while Abbott has presented it to the nation in an op-ed for The Oz.

Meanwhile, the pundits in the Australian media have descended like vultures this morning to tear into it.

Tony Abbott’s climate change political campaign is based on cost and Kevin Rudd’s is built on belief. The Leader of the Opposition has turned Coalition policy on its head and is going to run a scare campaign on rising costs for energy and food.

Voters want action on the issue, but they want a strategy they can understand. Labor purists might snigger at tree planting being centre stage but as a project it is more familiar than the intricacies of carbon trading.

As Kevin Rudd keeps saying, not so long ago Abbott was talking of the argument as ”absolute crap”. So he is looking neither to the long term nor (realistically) to the possibility of producing a policy to do more than the bare minimum 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

At the heart of the Coalition’s long awaited climate change policy is a belief that polluting the atmosphere should be free of charge

This crisis will cut hard and deep but one day it will be over.

What will be left? What do you want to be left?

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19 thoughts on “Ripping the guts out of Abbott’s climate change policy”

Most Peculiar Mama

Not a lot of criticism to be found of the plan either, barring the odd facile ad-hom on Tony.

But then the sun shone out of Kevin’s ETS with nary a word of critique from the commentariat.

Predictably though the Aged editorial opines for economic stagnation in favour of environmental salvation:

“…(by) putting a firm brake on ”business as usual”…”

With its credibility ebbing away daily, Melbournes Red Rag believes it can simultaneously hold the view that inviting more people to eat pie is good..but ya just gonna have to make do with the same amount of pie.

Will make a great ad for Fugee Tours Down Under.

Exhibiting such misanthropic duplicity would make their dwindling head-tilter readership most proud.

jenauthor

Most Peculiar Mama you need to tak off those rose-coloured (or is that Liberal-coloured) glasses a moment.

Even though most mainstream media are in bed with the coalits (and you can often tell by the tone of their words that they really aren’t in favour but if they want to keep their jobs in their conservative journals then they must toe the line) … the theme I see is that TA has come up with clever politics that has no, absolutely no, credibility in terms of climate change or reducing emissions.

TA all but admitted in his shaky interview on last night’s 7:30 report that the policy only exists because it is politically necessary.

As to the policy itself (which Greg Hunt laughably lip-sinked most of the time during TA’s delivery yesterday):

Like most ‘funds’ offered to business as incentive to better behaviour, TA’s climate fund will be open to mass rorting and let me guess … all the funding will end up in coffers belonging to companies sitting in Liberal electorates. How cynical of me!

Millions of trees are commendable — but how do we pay for the necessary land and water (ongoing)? Big business certainly won’t have to cough up, will they? No – the budget is the answer — that means health, welfare and infrastructure will have to be pared back … unless of course the magic pudding again rears it ugly, but non-existant head.

Rebates for carbon sequestration in farmland is part of the Rudd CPRS — which will be funded by cost to polluters from the cap and trade system.

Sorry MPM, the mad monk is living in la-la land if he believes thinking people will swallow this crud. Oh, wait, I forgot, the coalits assume the electorate is downright stupid … silly me.

jack jones

The problem here is which do you choose from labor or liberal. Neither policy will get us anywhere near serious emissions cuts, both offer unjustified handouts to polluters, both are unfortunately focussed more on spin than substance. Abbots is relatively simple and straightforward spin from a highly cynical party that only sees electoral opportunity not a serious imperative. Rudds is more complicated spin from a highly cynical party that only sees electoral opportunity (but that may be ebbing away a little) and not a serious imperative. Miserable choice. The only relevant option is for the election to deliver a green balanced senate and a strong showing for them in inner city electorates probably and then back to the drawing board post election. If Rudd is serious he will back the Greens interim carbon price plan, it has the benefit of making something happen now while we work on the more complex policy structures over time and can get backing of the senate. He can’t say no to it and maintain any credibility at all …Then we can see if the dog of an ETS can be somehow fixed up to do something useful.

someguy

Ah, then you stand by the idea that there is a global conspiracy of (gay?) communist scientists, the pope, the queen, Rupert Murdoch etc etc etc to creating a one world government by inventing climate change? Or would it be more exact to say that the real conspirators are shape-shifting lizard aliens from the pleiades?